Airborne quantification of upper tropospheric NO_x production from lightning in deep convective storms over the United States Great Plains

Authors

I. B. Pollack, Colorado State UniversityFollow
C. R. Homeyer, University of Oklahoma
T. B. Ryerson, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
K. C. Aikin, University of Colorado Boulder
J. Peischl, University of Colorado Boulder
E. C. Apel, National Center for Atmospheric Research
T. Campos, National Center for Atmospheric Research
F. Flocke, National Center for Atmospheric Research
R. S. Hornbrook, National Center for Atmospheric Research
D. J. Knapp, National Center for Atmospheric Research
D. D. Montzka, National Center for Atmospheric Research
A. J. Weinheimer, National Center for Atmospheric Research
D. Riemer, University of Miami
G. Diskin, Oak Ridge Associated Universities
G. Sachse, NASA Langley Research Center
T. Mikoviny, University of Oslo
A. Wisthaler, Institut für Ionenphysik und Angewandte Physik
E. Bruning, Texas Tech University
D. MacGorman, NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory
K. A. Cummings, University of Maryland
K. E. Pickering, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
H. Huntrieser, Institut für Physik der Atmosphäre
M. Lichtenstern, Institut für Physik der Atmosphäre
H. Schlager, Institut für Physik der Atmosphäre
M. C. Barth, National Center for Atmospheric Research

Date of this Version

2016

Citation

Pollack, I. B., et al. (2016), Airborne quantification of upper tropospheric NO_x production from lightning in deep convective storms over the United States Great Plains, J. Geophys. Res. Atmos., 121, 2002–2028, doi:10.1002/ 2015JD023941.

Comments

U. S. government work.

Abstract

The reported range for global production of nitrogen oxides (NO_x=NO+NO₂) by lightning remains large (e.g., 32 to 664mol NO_x flash^-1), despite incorporating results from over 30 individual laboratory, theoretical, and field studies since the 1970s. Airborne and ground-based observations from the Deep Convective Clouds and Chemistry experiment in May and June 2012 provide a new data set for calculating moles of NO_x produced per lightning flash, P(NO_x), in thunderstorms over the United States Great Plains. This analysis utilizes a combination of in situ observations of storm inflow and outflow from three instrumented aircraft, three-dimensional spatial information from ground-based radars and satellite observations, and spatial and temporal information for intracloud and cloud-to-ground lightning flashes from ground-based lightning mapping arrays. Evaluation of two analysis methods (e.g., a volume-based approach and a flux-based approach) for converting enhancements in lightning-produced NO_x from volume-based mixing ratios to moles NO_x flash^-1 suggests that both methods equally approximate P(NO_x) for storms with elongated anvils, while the volume-based approach better approximates P(NO_x) for storms with circular-shaped anvils. Results from the more robust volume-based approach for three storms sampled over Oklahoma and Colorado during DC3 suggest a range of 142 to 291 (average of 194) moles NO_x flash^-1 (or 117–332mol NO_x flash^-1 including uncertainties). Although not vastly different from the previously reported range for storms occurring in the Great Plains (e.g., 21–465mol NO_x flash^-1), results from this analysis of DC3 storms offer more constrained upper and lower limits for P(NO_x) in this geographical region.